In the meetings of the church God makes His will known to us; many wonderful things happen under the surface in the meetings, and when we enter the sanctuary of God, we know God’s will, receive the divine revelation, and God’s way becomes clear to us.
If we realize that the will of God is for us to enjoy Christ as our everything for the building up of the church as His enlargement and expression, we will see the critical importance of the meetings.
The church is not something up in the air, in the spiritual realm, that we can barely touch or experience; rather, the church can be enjoyed, experienced, and practiced in the meetings of the church.
The meetings of the church are vitally important to us as believers in Christ, for our Christian life is a meeting life.
Even these days with the coronavirus pandemic all around the world, when the rules in our country are not to meet so that the virus would not spread, even now we can still meet, enjoy the Lord, and be in the meetings of the church.
If there is no meeting of the church, then there’s really no church in practicality.
And the meeting of the church doesn’t start when the time says it should start; rather, the meetings start with us exercising our spirit long before the meeting starts, for the reality of our meeting is the mingled spirit.
Our meetings as believers are to know the will of God and to carry out the will of God; in the meetings the will of God is done, and we receive the divine revelation concerning God’s will and God’s way to accomplish His will.
We all have to testify from our own experience that many times we’re so tired after a day of work, and we don’t feel like going to the meeting; but if we pay the price and get ourselves in the meeting with the saints, we are refreshed, enlightened, enlivened, and we have a fresh new revelation of God’s will.
We all have jobs, family responsibilities, and things to take care of, and the world as a system is designed to usurp us from enjoying God; but when we pay the price and present our bodies as a living sacrifice for the meetings of the church, we are enlivened, supplied, joyful, and victorious!
The grace of God is rich to us in the meetings, and the Lord’s work is powerful when we get into the sanctuary of God; here, in the sanctuary, we see what is in God’s heart, what His will is, and how to carry out His will, and we join ourselves to Him and to the fellow members of the Body to accomplish the will of God.
Enter the Sanctuary of God in the Meetings to Know God’s Will and His Ways
Doing the will of God depends on knowing His will (John 7:17); whoever wills to do the will of God, he will know the teaching of the Lord Jesus.
There has to be not just an intention and a wish to know God’s will but a resolution, a determination to know the will of God.
We exist on earth for God’s will, yet many times we admit that we don’t know God’s will as it applies to us; but if by the grace of God we know the will of God, we will be one with Him for our will to be done!
In Psa. 73 the psalmist was very troubled as he looked at the outward situation – why were the godly people suffering, and the sinners and evil ones seemed to be blessed financially and to prosper?
And he was close to being stumbled, until he went into the place of meeting, the sanctuary of God; here, he became clear!
The sanctuary of God today is our mingled spirit (where God dwells) and the meetings of the church. In our meetings there are many wonderful things that take place underneath the surface, one of which is knowing God’s will and His ways to accomplish His will.
We may be in a prayer meeting, in a meeting of fellowship and coordination, a meeting to pursue the truth, in a Lord’s Table meeting, or in a ministry meeting, and we may enjoy the Lord with the saints, focusing on what we are going through in the Word and in the ministry; however, underneath the surface, wonderful things are going on!
Many times when we’re in the sanctuary of God – in our mingled spirit in the meetings of the church – the Lord reveals His will to us, He unveils what He is doing in our being, and He shows us His way to carry out His will.
When we’re in the sanctuary of God, we are in the dwelling place of God, His family, and He is freely working in all of us.
The psalmist was really troubled concerning the outward appearance of things – the evil prospering while the righteous suffering and being poor – until he went into the sanctuary of God; and there he was able to know God’s will (Psa. 73:16-17).
When he saw God’s will, he realized that he only saw the outward appearance of things – the righteous suffering and the evil ones having all kinds of material blessings, but from God’s point of view, things are different!
We need to come to God’s sanctuary, His habitation, which is in our spirit (Eph. 2:22) and in the church (1 Tim. 3:15).
Our spirit is the dwelling place of God; God dwells as the Spirit in our spirit.
The church is the household of God, the dwelling place of God, the house of the living God; God dwells in the church and, in practicality, He dwells in the meetings of the church.
Once we are in the sanctuary – in the spirit and in the meetings of the church – we receive another view of our situation, even a particular perception which is of God (see Psa. 73:16-20).
We all can testify of this from our experience; we may come to the meetings of the church with a lot of questions, troubles, and puzzling situations that may nag us, but when we exercise our spirit and enter into the sanctuary of God, things become clear, we see God’s perception of things, and we have a revelation of the will of God.
We need to be delivered from our own perception with our senses interpreted by our mind; when we are in the mingled spirit, in the Tent of Meeting, we have God’s view, the Spirit’s perception, and things are clear.
God’s way is made known to us in the sanctuary of God; not only His will but also His ways, the way to carry out His will.
God has a will, and He also has a way to carry out His will, and a time to do this; timing means a lot to God, for His timing is different from our timing.
May we come to our mingled spirit and to the meetings of the church to receive the divine revelation (Rev. 1:10; Eph. 1:17-18); when we enter the sanctuary of God, a veil is lifted, and we are enlightened concerning God’s will and what He does in us.
We may be in a prayer meeting and as we pray, a veil is lifted on a certain matter, and we may be enlightened by the Lord.
When we exercise our spirit and attend the meetings of the church, God’s way becomes clear to us. Amen!
May we be filled with a fresh, new appreciation for the meetings of the church and for our mingled spirit, and may we realize how much we can gain of God and see of God when we enter into the sanctuary of God!
Lord Jesus, we come to You in the sanctuary of God concerning all our problems, perplexing things, and troubling matters; we exercise our spirit and come to the meetings of the church to touch You and receive a revelation from You! Hallelujah for our mingled spirit and the church, the sanctuary of God! God dwells in our spirit, and He dwells in the church. Amen, Lord, we turn to our spirit and we choose to go to the meetings of the church to enter into the sanctuary of God; grant us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of God and His will! Hallelujah, God’s will and His way is made known to us in the sanctuary of God, and in our spirit and in the meetings of the church we receive divine revelation!
Seeing that God’s Intention is for His Seekers to find Everything in God and have Him as their Satisfaction
As believers in Christ, we may expect that God would bless us, give us prosperity, and cause us to be happy and satisfied in all things, for He cares for us and wants our good (Rom. 8:28-29).
However, many times we realize that many people in the world are prosperous, seem to be happy and flourish, and they do evil continually while outwardly they seem to have no problems at all.
On the other hand, however, we who pursue the Lord may not be that prosperous but may even lack, our health may have problems, there may be problems in our family life and at work, and our situation may not be that good outwardly. Oh Lord!
We may be like the psalmist in Psa. 73, looking at the evil men and seeing them prosper, while we who seek righteousness and enjoy the Lord do not do so well.
Rather, we may not be able to have that much enjoyment in the world, the earthly things may not satisfy us and we may not even be able to have them, and there are trials and dealings that we go through day by day. Oh Lord!
But when we enter into the sanctuary of God, that is, in the local church and in the mingled spirit, we obtain the explanation to all our problems, and we have the divine view of things and situations.
Even more, as the psalmist realized in Psa. 73:25, we can say, Whom do I have in heaven but You? And besides You there’s nothing that I desire on earth.
In the sanctuary of God we realize that God is working not to make us prosperous and happy in this world but to deprive us of material things, earthly enjoyment, and worldly pleasures so that we may enjoy God in an absolute way.
The wicked prosper and their riches continually increase because God has simply given them up and lets them go on their own way; they have nothing to do with the enjoyment of God.
But God’s intention with us, His seeking believers, is to remove material blessings and physical enjoyments so that we may find everything in God and take Him as our unique satisfaction and enjoyment.
God is faithful to remove all things that replace Him so that we may enjoy only God; He wants us to arrive at the point where we have no satisfaction or enjoyment in anything outward but in Himself.
And when we try to rationalise and reason and understand why this and that happens, why is this wrong and that one is right, God wants to bring us to the tree of life and away from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, so that we may enjoy God as life and reject mere knowledge.
When we turn to our spirit and come to the meetings of the church, we enter the sanctuary of God; here we have a revelation of what God is doing and His ways of doing things, and we realize that He wants to become our everything for He really is our everything.
God intends that nothing should distract us from the absolute enjoyment of Christ; He does not allow us, His seeking ones, to enjoy this world and prosper here as the worldlings do, for He wants us to enjoy Him to the uttermost.
We must be in the spirit and in the local church, for it is here that we see the real situation, the real condition of things, and here we realize that God is really our everything.
When we exercise our spirit and attend the meetings of the church, God’s will and His way become clear to us, and God is our unique satisfaction and delight; we will then be able to say like the Psalmist that we have no one and nothing in heaven and on earth besides Him, for He alone is our satisfaction, enjoyment, and delight.
Lord, we come to You in our spirit and in the meetings of the church to seek You, see Your will, do Your will, and have Your perception of things. Turn us from mere knowledge to life; turn us from our own perception of things to the divine revelation of the real situation. Cause us to see, Lord, that You are working to remove all material blessings and all physical enjoyments so that we may find our delight and satisfaction only in God! Amen, Lord, may we realize that God doesn’t allow us, His seeking ones, to prosper and enjoy in this world like the worldlings do, because He wants us to enjoy God as our everything! May nothing distract us from the absolute enjoyment of God in our spirit!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, CWWL, 1969, vol. 3, “Christ and the Church Revealed and Typified in the Psalms,” pp. 113-114, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Will of God (2020 spring ITERO), week 8, Meeting to Know and Do the will of God.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Whom have I in heaven but Thee? / And there is none upon the earth / That I desire beside Thee. / My flesh and my heart faileth; / But God is the strength of my heart, / And my portion forever. (Scripture song)
– Whom have I in heaven but Thee? / And there’s none upon the earth that I / desire beside Thee. / Whom have I in heaven but Thee? / And there’s none upon the earth that I / desire beside Thee. (Song on, Whom have I in heaven but Thee)
– Hast thou heard Him, seen Him, known Him? / Is not thine a captured heart? / Chief among ten thousand own Him; / Joyful choose the better part. / Captivated by His beauty, / Worthy tribute haste to bring; / Let His peerless worth constrain thee, / Crown Him now unrivaled King. (Hymns #437)
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